Friday, 5 November 2010

Thought It Ended 5 Years Ago

The Jerry Springer show is 20 years old which is surprising to me as I thought it ended at least 5 years ago. Twenty years where a millionaire invited mockery on people who were mainly poor and stupid. But then the well off have been mocking the poor for essentially being poor for centuries. Perhaps the nastiest recent example was the use of words like pram-face which more than one tv executive thought was an acceptable term to put in a shows title.

From a trans perspective it also helped to perpetuate negative and unhelpful transgender stereotypes, Jerry's Transsexual Surprise, Guess What, I'm Really A Man, High School Transsexual being some of the episode titles .I personally find it depressing that transgender (and I use the general rather than the specific transsexual because the results radiate out, affecting all) people are displayed in such a way to barely disguised titters.

Much like trans Big Brother contestants where you just know there's a gag about there being a knob under that skirt round the corner before they show a prosthetic penis to emphasise the point.

In its defence it doesn't claim to be anything else but silly, mainly scripted, trash, no pretence of "after-care" and unlike Jeremy Kyle there's no smug bullying lectures mid way though a segment. But it does annoy the hell out of me to see trans peoples portrayed in such a way.

Yes, it is meant to be funny and all of the characters are actors, but it plays on stereotypes and we don't need that kind of stuff in our community. How is the general public ever going to understand us with that kind of crap on the tube?